Chip. Come, now all things are ready, let's away. [Exeunt.
Enter Epire and Alphonso.
Epire. Mercy is banish'd courts; the king, like flint,
Hardens his royal temper 'gainst our 'plaints,
And makes our woes most unavoidable.
What inauspicious star reign'd at her birth,
That heaven thus frowns upon her misery?
And, my good lord, now innocence must die,
As white as untrod snow or culver down.[182]
Kings' words are laws, and cannot be withstood;
Yet 'tis false greatness, which delights in blood.
Alph. Patience, my lord; I do not think this ill
Is yet so big, as [to be] unrecoverable.
The king doth hold you in most choice respect,
And whom kings love, they study to oblige;
Then call your reason home, make not this civil war,
To suffer makes woes lesser than they are.
Epire. How well the sound can salve[183] the sick man's grief!
But O, how ill he can digest his pills![184]
O my good lord, you shall not lose a sister,
That is the joy and comfort of your breath;
Tis not your blood shall issue from her wound;
But mine that runs in rivers from her tears,
And drown my face in her calamity.
Well, let her perish, since her soul is clear,
And for her death I'll make a massacre.
Enter Cyprus, Queen, Philocles, Mariana bound, a guard of halberts, and an executioner.
Cyp. Your suits are bootless: for my vows have glued
And clos'd mine ears, that they retain no sound
Of your entreaties; and even now the time
Doth run upon his latest minutes, and
Save but by speech, there's no recovery.
Queen. Have mercy, good my lord: O, let my tears intrude
Betwixt your vows and her calamity:
In her you take from me my best of life,
My joy, my comfort, and my playfellow.
Cyp. Content you, madam, for my vow is past,
And is like fate still unrevocable:
Ascend, poor model of calamity.
Mar. As lightly burden'd with the weight of crimes,
As spotless infants or poor harmless lambs,
Thus I ascend my heaven. This first step lower
Mounts to this next; this thus and thus[185] hath brought
My body's frame unto its highest throne:
Here doth her office end, and hence my soul
With golden wings of thought shall mount the sky,
And reach a palace[186] of pure sanctity.
Farewell, my sovereign! Madam, within your thoughts
Make me a tomb, and love my memory.
Brother, farewell; nay, do not mourn my death,
It is not I that die to spot our house,
Or make you live in after-obloquy.
Then weep no more, but take my last adieu:
My virtues, not my faults, preserve with you.
Lastly, to you that are my last of hope—
Nay, do not hide your eyes, I love them still,
To part friends now is greatest charity.
O, be thy days as fruitful in delights,
As Eden in choice flowers: thine honours such
As all the world may strive to imitate.
Be master of thy wishes: only this,
When the sad nurse, to still the wrangling babe,
Shall sing the careful story of my death,
Give me a sigh from thy heart's purest breath:
And so farewell.